MINHAZ KAZI: Welcome to DataVis DevTalk.
I'm your host, Minhaz Kazi.
Our today's guest is Sarah Liou.
Sarah lives in Toronto, Canada, and attends
McMaster University.
There she is working towards a Bachelor of Commerce,
majoring in marketing.
Sarah is also one of the winners of the Visualize 2030 contest.
With Sarah's love for animals and passion
for the environment, she was excited to create
a visual story that would drive awareness
to these important causes.
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Sarah, welcome to the show.
SARAH LIOU: Thank you for having me.
MINHAZ KAZI: So tell the audience a little bit
about yourself.
What are you busy with these days?
SARAH LIOU: Yeah, so I'm currently a commerce student
at McMaster University.
And I am currently on internship.
So I will be returning to school for my last year in the fall.
Once I graduate, I'll hopefully be
looking to start my career in something in marketing
or maybe something in the digital space.
MINHAZ KAZI: So how did you become interested in data
visualization in the first place?
SARAH LIOU: So at my organization currently
where I'm interning, I have had a couple of opportunities
to create different dashboards using Data Studio--
for instance, a sales performance dashboard
and a dashboard on seeing where our leads are coming from.
So that is what forced me to learn more
about data visualization.
But also, we-- collectively as an organization,
we occasionally do data visualization
for fun and to practice our skills.
So being able to see other people's more creative works
of data visualization is what really
got me excited to try it myself, as I
like creating things that are visually appealing
and fun to look at.
So that was what really excited me to learn more.
MINHAZ KAZI: What has been your experience with Data Studio?
You mentioned that the organization you're working at,
that's where you got introduced to the tool.
But as you've used it more and more,
what do you think about it?
What has been your overall experience with this?
SARAH LIOU: Yeah, so Data Studio is a great tool.
It's basically the only data visualization tool
that I use because it's so simple to use.
And it's really easy to get started.
And you really just get this blank canvas,
and you can go wherever you want.
You can make something very simple and plain
and just get right to the point.
Or you can do something completely
different and creative and turn it
into kind of like a piece of art, but also showing data.
So that's what I really love.
And, like I said, with the drag-and-drop features
and the different filtering options,
you can really completely transform a basic chart
into something that's interactive and something that
just kind of goes with the flow of what you're trying
to tell in your narrative.
MINHAZ KAZI: Congrats on being one of the five winners
of the Visualize 2030 contest.
SARAH LIOU: Thank you.
MINHAZ KAZI: Can you take the audience
through the visualization that you built?
Like, tell them about the story that you're
trying to tell throughout this entire dashboard.
SARAH LIOU: Yeah, so let's go ahead and get into it,
and I can go through that.
So here's my data visualization that I submitted.
So I focused on a total of four of the Sustainable Development
Goals.
So I discuss how by achieving the one goal--
one of the targets in the Zero Hunger goal
is to improve our agricultural practices
and make them more sustainable.
So by achieving this one, we can work
towards three other goals of climate action, life on land,
and having clean water and sanitation
available to everyone.
So as I was going through, I realized
that agriculture doesn't just affect the actual climate
change, but it affects so many different things
in our environment.
So I wanted to display this as a little roadmap that we can work
towards achieving these goals in a future state,
and the different roadblocks that
are getting in the way of actually achieving them.
So for instance, agricultural practices,
they contribute to many greenhouse gas emissions.
And we can see that they increase over time.
And in regards to livestock production in particular,
as it increases around the globe in every single--
in almost every country, we can see
that there is a positive correlation between livestock
production, as well as the total greenhouse gas
emissions in our atmosphere.
And when we focus on life on land,
we can see that here, in 1990, the agricultural land
and forest area were almost equal in regards
to arable land.
But if we move to 2015, you can see
that there is a significant difference between agricultural
and forest area land use.
And I focus in on some different case studies
to see how there are different habitat losses because
of the land that is being used for agricultural purposes
rather than forest.
And in regards to water resources,
I focused on some different case studies as well
and how a majority of water uses for certain countries
are used for agriculture, even if they
have water stress already.
So at the end here, I just offered some different calls
to action on what we can do to achieve these goals.
And by limiting our meat consumption
and using less land for agriculture
and less water for agriculture, we
could really work towards achieving all four
of these goals in the future.
MINHAZ KAZI: What do you think about Data Studio
as a tool for anyone who's trying to tell their own story
and trying to bring about social change?
SARAH LIOU: Yeah, so like I said, because Data Studio is
very easy to get started with, and it's also free to use,
anyone--
especially if you're in a nonprofit
or if you're doing a charity, you
may not have the funds to invest in a complex data visualization
tool--
Data Studio allows anyone to learn more
about data visualization and to actually put their data
into visualization.
So I think it's a great tool, especially for those purposes.
And because-- just data visualization in general,
when you're putting the data into visuals,
it's very easy for anyone to understand.
So you could literally just have a chart.
And pretty much anyone can look at a bar chart
and see that one is way bigger than another.
And especially when it comes to things like language barriers
and just different knowledge of understanding when it comes
to data, this is a great way to get your message out there
to everyone, regardless of how familiar they actually
are with data visualization.
And it's also a great way to get your story out there really
quickly, because you can go from explaining in a paragraph
form of why this is that way, and that could take, like,
several minutes.
Or you could simply just glance over at a chart
and pull insights instantly.
And Data Studio makes that really easy
to construct and get out there.
And then again, with the interactive features,
that just makes it so much--
it completely changes the experience
of the person who's viewing the visualization.
MINHAZ KAZI: What are your advice for folks who want
to tell their own data stories?
What kind of tips would you give them?
SARAH LIOU: So I would say definitely
look at some other examples online
to get some inspiration on how you actually want to construct
your data story, and what's the best way to show
what you're trying to say.
But I would also say, rather than just copying something
that you see online, definitely go into the tool,
whether you're using Data Studio or something else,
just go in there, look at the blank canvas,
and play around with it, and see what
it is you're trying to show.
And really focus on what you're trying to tell.
And you can really frame the order of your story
exactly in the story that you're trying to tell.
So again, when you're going through and constructing,
just think that you're telling a story to someone that you know,
and construct the visualization in that order.
MINHAZ KAZI: Sarah, thank you again for being on the show.
You can learn more about the Visualize 2030 contest
and look at the winning visualizations in the links
in the description.
For more Data Studio content, be sure to subscribe
to the GCP channel.
And you can always visit our site at developers.googl
e.com/datastudio.
Until next time, keep building more Vis.
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